D RAY
04-21-2006, 02:45 PM
Well, as most of you know, I usually start my first fishing expedition in early spring. Either for Trophy Rainbows (see post entitled " March Madness"), or for my favorite fish, Steelhead Trout. This year was no different, I started fishing in early March for steelhead in Southeast Ak. Once again, like last March, mother nature threw a curve from leftfield. The whole Southeast panhandle had record breaking freezing cold temperatures. The rivers that I usually fish, were frozen solid, you could actually see the steelhead swimming under the ice. After many long cold winter months of pent up anticipation, not being able to fish at all was frustrating to put it mildly. So, I caught the next thing smoking back to Anchorage, with a plan of coming back soon. Four weeks later, I get a call from one of the locals that lives in Southeast Ak. He told me " D, the fishing is picking up down here, between two guys fishing, we landed over forty fish today, give or take a few." I was on the plane two days later. The temperature when I arrived was thirty-nine degrees, the water temperature was thirty-five degrees. The water level was on the rise. It had been raining and snowing for the last four days. Yahoooooooo, perfect steelhead conditions. Except, someone forgot to tell the fish. My friend who lives there had happened to catch the first wave of springers coming in, by the time I got there (two days later), those fish had already made it halfway up the river, and not unmolested either. We fished 12-14 hour days. And we would see pods of 70-80 steelhead, and only have maybe ten biters out of the group. Without any new fish pushing up, the ones that were already in the system were starting to get lockjaw from the fishing pressure. Luckily, we know these streams intimately, so we would fish spots that other anglers didn't have a clue about, and we would land 7-8 there, and sometimes more or less in other spots. All in all, just being able to fish, hook fish, and release fish made for some great conversation around the kitchen table as we sat around and ate blacktail deer roast, fresh beer batter halibut, and grilled ribeye steaks. And, although I'm not much of a drinker, those seagram's and seven's I partook of, made for some sweet dreams at night. Because of the inclement weather (I didn't want my Canon G-5 exposed to the elements), I didn't take as many photo's as I usually do. But, here are some of the few I took, enjoy!
D Ray
D Ray